Elisabeth Fairchild (11 page)

Elaine shook her head.

“Aha.” Mrs. Olive bent to pluck up a fresh ball of yarn, and with the skill of much practice, started fresh thread. “Tried to have at you, did he?”

Elaine sat silent, humiliated, unable to so much as nod.

“It is a common problem when one is young and pretty,” Mrs. Olive said matter-of-factly, as if that should prove a comfort.

Elaine regarded her reflection, mirrored in the windows of the coach. Not pretty. She had never considered herself pretty. Her features were too ordinary. Too serious. It was the reason her mother had suggested she consider taking position as a governess.

“My sisters inherited all the looks of the family,” she said.

“Did they now?” Mrs. Olive glanced up from her work, and tipped her head, as if to study Elaine’s face thoroughly for the first time.

“Two of them have found husbands.”

“I see.” The older woman smiled, and pushed her stitches further down the needle. “And none to offer for you but a married man?” She tsk-tsked, head shaking, and smoothed the weighty length of wool that draped her knee. “No need to blush, my dear. Men will not trouble you so much when the bloom of youth fades.”

The bloom of her youth? So pale her cheeks in the windowpane.
Has my bloom already faded?

“And do you mean to stay with us, my dear?”

“I am most hesitant to do so,” she confided.

“You need not fear the master would do anything untoward.”

“I am glad to hear it. But . . .” Elaine sighed, and pleated the fabric of her skirt with nervous hand. “It is not that.”

“What then? Pray tell me. Perhaps I can set your mind at ease.”

The truth was best. “My father drank.”

“Aha. And so the master’s history has you worried?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Olive looped yarn about her finger. The click of the needles commenced with renewed fury. “And have I discouraged you?” she fretted. “I have, have I not? In telling tales, blabbermouth that I am.”

Elaine watched the busy harvesting of twisted wool. She envied Mrs. Olive her ceaseless productivity, never a wasted moment. “I knew,” she said. “Before you said a word. There were others before you to tell tales of the notorious Lord Wharton.”

The needles flashed and clicked. Mrs. Olive shook her head and tsk-tsked under her breath. “And yet, my dear, you see his lordship in better times. You will recall I said as much.”

“So you say.”

“Not a drop has he touched in the longest while. It is everywhere to tempt him, at every inn, and posting house, and dinner with friends or family. You see his fixation with tea.”

“Yes. But many a time my father swore he would never touch the spirits again, that he would not be tempted by cards.”

“Broken promises? Poor dear.”

“Poor father. In the end it ruined him--health and wealth. He was doubly cursed. Left us in straightened circumstances at his death. We had no true idea of the extent of his debts, you see. They were numerous. It is the reason I was forced--” she stopped, frowning-- “The reason I chose to become a governess, and my younger sister a lady’s companion, and my two elder sisters have married not out of love but necessity.”

“Honorable choices. Is it many siblings you have?”

“Six of us.”

“Oh dear, I have dropped a stitch.” Mrs. Olive unraveled a row to repair her error. “And how many are brothers to see you are cared for?”

“All girls.”

The needles talked while they two fell silent.

“We six have always been very close, and can rely upon one another in the direst of circumstances.”

“How fortunate. Then you’ve nothing to worry you?” She did not sound convinced.

“I have been blessed with education enough to support myself.”

“I know what you are going through.” Mrs. Olive smoothed her errant yarn. “As a young woman I was widowed, my husband killed in the navy.” Such sadness in her eyes. Such loss.

“I am sorry to hear it.”

“I was devastated. Thought I would never recover. Could not imagine myself happy in anyone else’s company. I counted it a blessing we had no children.”

“Why?”

“Without encumbrances I was free to take up service.”

A blessing? She counted that a blessing?

“Mine has been for the most part a happy life, a comfortable one. I wish you the luck I have had in finding positions where your services are respected, needed, and well paid for. I think you would be hard pressed to find a better master than his lordship.”

“Yes, but . . .”

“Mind you, I understand, but you must not allow fear to rule you. Lord Wharton is the best of men when he is sober. His parents are wonderful, quiet people, and you love the child. You cannot be certain you will find anything better, and most likely will land in the middle of something very much worse. Trust me in this. I have had a great many years to see that every employer has his weaknesses, every mistress her faults, and as for children--well--you might end up in a position where you are expected to teach a score of rambunctious, little monsters, who evidence not the slightest lick of respect or affection for you.”

A bleak picture.

But no more time for discussing it. The bell jingled on the shop’s door and out stepped dear Felicity, a bundle in her arms. His lordship held the door for her, another parcel in hand.

Felicity ran to the coach, and when the footman jumped down to open the door, and helped her with the step, she would not relinquish her package to him. “It is for Miss Deering,” she insisted.

“And had you luck in finding some tea?” Mrs. Olive called out to her.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “All sorts of tea, and this for Miss Deering.”

“What’s this?” Elaine asked, taking the parcel thrust into her hands.

“She insisted you must have it,” Lord Wharton leaned in the door.

“So that you may remember us when you go away,” Felicity said.

“Open it,” Mrs. Olive encouraged.

Elaine attempted to do just that, but the twine that tied the parcel thwarted her shaking fingers.

“Allow me,” Wharton sank into the seat across from her, and snapped the twine in gloved hands, as if it were nothing. With the twine, something inside of Elaine snapped and fell away.

As the coach was set in motion, as masses of paper packing unraveled, Felicity, unable to contain herself, said, “It is the most clever little teapot, Miss Deering.”

Elaine lifted the short, squat, brilliantly colored pot in a shape more Oriental than English.

“A dragon, do you see? A Chinese dragon.”

It winds about the pot--and you, dearest child, wind just as tightly about my heart.

“Such a bright color it is,” Mrs. Olive said. “But I do not see a dragon. All pattern it seems. The whole pot covered in it.”

“Here. These are the eyes, and here the mouth.”

“Do you see it now?”

“Aha. A bit of a puzzle. It does not look at all like any dragon I have seen before.”

Indeed it did not look like an English dragon, too stylized, all triangles and circles, glossy eyes rings of color on color, its wrinkled snout doglike, and from its mouth the spout poured red and gold fire. The same stylized red and gold flames coiled inside the set of four cups, and on the outside stylized clouds billowed.

“Do you like it? Papa agreed that you could not help but think of us every time you used such a thing.”

How archly Lord Wharton observed her reaction. “Not afraid of this dragon, are you Miss Deering?” he drawled.

Afraid I am captured entirely.
“No, my lord,” she said quietly. “No fire in this creature without hot water in his belly.” She turned the pot in her hands, the porcelain so cool she wished she might press it to the heat in her cheeks. “A magnificent dragon. A kind and thoughtful gift. Unforgettable.”

“You will not forget me?” Felicity asked with a child’s urgency.

She cupped her charge’s cheek, far warmer than the teapot, far dearer. “How could I ever forget you, Felicity? Impossible, my dear.”

How pleased she seemed to hear it. How difficult it would be to find another position where her pupil tried so hard to please, where her employer noticed she existed, and would not be forgotten.

Lord Wharton cleared his throat. “We mean to walk the walls of Chester, Miss Deering, and Felicity wondered---”

“Yes, will you walk with us?” Felicity asked anxiously. “Please? Mrs. Olive does not care for such activity.”

Mrs. Olive nodded. “Too hard on these old joints to be climbing stairs, my dear, much less walls.”

“Please, Miss Deering. Papa tells me they’ve a great wall in China, a huge wall that stretches across the country, like Hadrian’s wall in Scotland, which I told him of, for he would know what you taught me.”

For a fleeting moment she allowed her gaze to turn in his direction, to meet the distant sky blue.

“Why does man feel compelled to build so many great walls?” Mrs. Olive wondered aloud. “Keeping people out. Keeping people in. Seems a great bother.”

His lordship said softly, “We all build walls, Mrs. Olive.”

“If only to establish boundaries,” Elaine added quietly. Valentine Wharton was watching her.
Too many walls? Or not enough?

“You will join us?” he asked as he shook out the paper he had purchased, along with his tea. And on the page there were rows of black-boxed advertisements for the hiring of staff. “Or do you prefer to spend your time studying these?”

Elaine stared at the advertisements a moment. Dreams, hopes, walled up in black ink. Unknown monsters?

“I should like to join you,” she said.

“How far will you go, Miss Deering?” his lordship drawled.

“They stretch entirely around the city.” Mrs. Olive warned her.

“All the way to China?” Felicity asked with a laugh.

Elaine gave one of the child’s fair curls a tweak. “Not quite so far, but, perhaps all the way to Wales?”

“My dear!” Mrs. Olive’s knitting fell, forgotten. “Do you mean it?”

“Hoorah!” Felicity crowed. “Papa! Miss Deering means to stay!”

“Indeed,” his lordship folded the paper and tucked it away, and looked at her with blue eyes not quite so distant as before. “I don’t suppose we shall be needing this, then, shall we?”

V
al led the way to the top of the walls encircling the city, by way of the recently built Northgate. A plain Classical arch, it lifted them above the crack of the whip and the rattle of coach wheels, above the bustle of the Pied Bull’s coal blackened brick, and pale quoining. One could see the arched windows and ribbed spires of Chester Cathedral, the clock tower above the town hall. One could smell the fullness of spilled ale and tobacco smoke from the open doorway of the Blue Bell.

They passed those doors, glanced into the fermented gloom.

He turned his back on temptation. Once again said no.

Felicity ran ahead. Miss Deering passed him, her skirt brushing his boot tops.

I need a drink. A woman.
He looked away from the sway of hips, the sway of dark skirts.

To his right, far below, glittered the narrow sword-blade-blue of the canal, overshadowed by the wall, boats and barges lined up, waiting, wood creaking on water, ropes slapping. Voices echoed as the great wooden doors to the locks creaked wide, water sluicing. Another world.

The air smelled damp, of wet stone, mud, and lapping river.

I am a man on a wall looking down. Removed. Distant. So small my shadow on the water.

Ahead of him his daughter scampered, voice like birdsong, her delight evident in peering down first on one side of the wall promenade, and then the other. Between them, Miss Deering; black dress, black bonnet, blackbird, wings folded. Not a crow. She had not the voice of a crow.
Bird in hand?

She explained why a city should require walls that one might walk. The Romans. The Roundheads. Standing above one’s enemy placed one at an advantage.

An advantage to have her, to know she went with them to Wales.

Beyond the canal stretched fields--empty fields.
As I am empty. Lonely
. Beyond the fields, the Welsh hills.
Not so far now.

“Imagine men on horseback, lances held high,” she said. “Imagine tournaments of mail clad knights, standards fluttering in the breeze.”

He could see it, just as she described. Not so long ago. Broomstick for a horse. Mop handle for a sword.
I rode off on a dream, and woke up at Waterloo. How does my daughter envision herself? What childish dreams does she dream?

He turned to gaze at the young lady who had decided he was not the dragon everyone painted him. At least enough so that she stayed with Felicity.
What dreams does a governess dream?

She spoke to his daughter, taught her something in every sentence, as if it were the easiest thing in the world, the two of them chattering away, smiling, happy, his daughter asking question after question. Miss Deering answered patiently, seriously, as if the answers mattered. As if his child mattered.

Ahead of them rose a round tower, part of the wall, the top crenellated with stony teeth. Felicity squealed with delight and ran in through an open archway, the tower’s throat.

Miss Deering turned to look over her shoulder. From her lips, her breath drifted white.
Dragon’s breath.
Their gazes met. In her eyes a question.

“Let her go,” he said.

“She loves ruins,” she said fondly, waiting for him to catch up to her, falling into step beside him.

“That explains how she could love a ruin like me.”

She walked beside him in pent silence a moment before she responded. “She loses herself in the past. Do you, my lord?”

He was momentarily taken aback. “A good question. But tell me, Miss Deering, do your thoughts move behind or ahead of you?”

Her brow puckered. “I do not follow.”

“That’s good, as I would not lead.”

She tilted her head in his direction, eyes narrowing against the sun--or was it his teasing.

He relented. “You consider a future with us.”

“Yes. Would you now object to it?”